They're just happy, fun.

Jolly people.

You know what it's been three years.

I'm not taking this anymore.

I've been pushed around.

I've been threatened.

I've been thrown in the dungeon.

I've been the butt of all the jokes.

I'm the Filipino one.

This is my time.

Welcome to the Philippines.

My turn.

Okay.

Geography, everyone.

I'm Ken.

And as you know, I'm half Filipino.

Years ago, I was looking for a job and I saw this ad asking for a motion graphics animator on Craigslist.

Paul and I literally met about a jolly be for my interview.

He said I was his top three candidates.

In reality, there were only three candidates that applied.

So technically, I didn't lie, but yeah, the other two people kind of sucks, So Oh, And back then, I had this weird mustache and Paul's hair was basically this thing.

Ken and I have been talking for a long time, and we agreed Ken definitely has to be in this episode.

You've come so far from that Craigslist jolly be interview.

You've earned this bank's bandana maximal a thief.

Philippines is an interesting country because there's sort of a dichotomy between labeled.

If you ask a Filipino if they consider themselves Asian or Pacific Islanders, you might get contracting answers.

What do you consider yourself can?

I always thought Pacific Islander sounded kind of cool, so I usually stuck with that.

So, first of all, the Philippines is a tropical archipelago of over 7000 islands, about 2000 which are inhabited.

And it is the largest island nation without any land, borders or shared island territory with another nation.

The country's located in Southeast Asia, straddling the Philippine Sea in the north, the South China Sea in the west and the Su Lou and celibacy in the South Justice, Skip away lies the island of Borneo, which is split amongst three nations at the closest point only about 22 miles, or 40 kilometers away from the nearest island that belongs to the Philippines.

Now, in general, many people will refer to one of the three main island cluster regions that people are part of their lips sewn in the north, where you can find the capital, Manila, and where the half of the population lives messiah in the center and Mindanao in the south.

Otherwise, the nation is made up of 17 regions, one of which is autonomous Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, off Muslim means.

And now this place has a high level of self rule and autonomy appointed by the government will explain more about this later if you want to be absolutely technical guess.

In city a bit north of Manila is the largest city in the Philippines.

However, the surrounding 16 towns and cities by Manila are called Manila Metro for the National Capital Region, and they basically act as one unit, otherwise the largest city outside of the n.

C.

R R Davao City in Mindanao in Seibu.

In the Besides, Manila has the largest and busiest airport, Ninoy Aquino International Airport, which is basically the hub.

That service is the entire NCR.

They also have the busiest shipping port at the Port of Manila.

Otherwise, the second largest airport is say boom Ogden International, and rounding up for third place is the Valley City Francisco Bongo International.

In terms of land transport, though, the Philippines is well connected amongst the island.

In fact, the longest highways, the pan Philippine highway that stretches about 3500 kilometers across the country and connects Listen, Samar, Liet and Mindanao with underground tunnels connecting them.

Finally, the Philippines has only two territorial disputes.

The state of Sabah in Malaysia, on North Borneo, George Orry ones have been part of the Sultanate of Solu, a Muslim state that existed the 15th century to the 20th century.

And that's a whole other story.

As for the others dispute, as we mentioned quite a few times already, this whole area known as the Spratly Islands is a complete mess.

If you don't know anything about this place, it basically goes like this, Theo.

Yeah, it's pretty crazy.

This is the map showing what everyone claims in the area.

This big one right here is China's like, Yeah, they just kind of pretty much went for all of it.

This has even led to a few skirmishes between nations that have built patrol stations on the island.

And when they spot a ship that gets too close, things could get kind of ugly.

It's kind of like this.

Hey, what are you doing?

This is my area.

I'm just doing some fishing and research here, you know?

Why do you have a shovel, then?

Are you building something?

Well, technically, there's old land protruding from this reef.

So, uh, there's no land claim, so you're just gonna build your own land for research anyway, Here's some notable spots of interest for it.

Santiago Magellan's cross on a boost in church cicada hanging coffins.

Rolando.

Shrines of Booze, Philippine Towers, Temple China Mama Mary and Target.

The Lapu Lapu Shrine Lunetta Park MacArthur Landing site Finale.

Rice Terraces, Malecon, Young Palace Vegan has many historical and colonial buildings, the various national museums of history and arts.

Tons of amusement park.

And that's not even including all the natural wonders of the Philippines.

They have an underground river, the most amazing, beautiful beaches in the universe, pills that look like lumps of chocolate.

And there's an island in a lake in an island in a lake in an island.

We should hang out sometime.

Yeah, when you have 7000 tropical islands on a volcanic archipelago, chances are things can get pretty crazy.

Landscape wise, which brings us to the actual physical land of the Philippines is the biggest treasure you will find here for sure.

Anyway, the Philippines lies on the ring of Fire and it specifically on a tectonic plate named after them.

The Philippine plate in about 95% of the land is made up of the 11 largest islands.

The country was essentially formed through the tectonic activity between the Philippines, Manila and the Mindanao Trench, the Mindanao being the second deepest in the world.

This makes the country susceptible to small earthquakes and minor volcanic activity.

About 53 active volcanoes can be found in all of these largest islands except Apollo on the most famous and picturesque of these include these three See this island here coming queen.

It actually has more volcanoes than towns on it seven versus five, making it the place with the most number of volcanoes per square kilometre in the world.

In fact, the tallest peak in the Philippines is a potentially active volcano Mount couple.

Located in the South Mindanao area, the country has numerous mountain ranges and highlands that dip into the fertile valleys, the largest range being the quarter g et a range in the north with zone area hooking into the Sierra Madre range on the east side, which feeds the longest river of the country, the Cagayan that flows into the car guy in Valley.

This valley, along with the central its own valley, are the largest arable crop lands and produced nearly all of the rice in the Philippines.

The messiahs are known for growing the most sugar king, whereas men down specializes heavy and coconut and fruit production.

Back in Lisandro, you confined the largest lake in the country like Laguna De by which is actually in the caldera of a dormant volcano like has a weird, detached island called Talim and is actually drained by the Pasig River that flows through the capital Manila.

And finally, the country is the heart of typhoon territory.

They can come at almost any time of the year.

The nation will experience, on average, about 20 of the turbulent storms annually, which often flood to their many river systems.

But yeah, if anything, Filipinos are the most cyclone adapted people on earth, they're used to it.

The water has always been kind of their thing swimming, sailing, fishing, just not exactly quite diving into it.

Otherwise, the Philippines is one of the 17 mega diverse nations on Earth.

They actually have the largest level of marine biodiversity in the world within their waters and the highest rate of animal discovery on the planet.

With 16 new mammal species that were discovered in the past decade alone, they have everything from the longest snake in the world, the reticulated python, the largest fish in the world.

Whale sharks, Seven of the eight known species of giant clam are found in the Philippines.

The world's smallest hoofed animal, the Philippine mouse deer and their national bird is the largest eagle in the world.

Economically speaking, the Philippines is considered a newly industrialized nation.

It is transitioning out of becoming agricultural base system to a service and manufacturing base.

One they have, like three of the top 10 largest malls on earth.

Just you wait.

I'm taking the top spots.

They're one of the fastest growing economies in Asia.

And as the 34th largest economy in the world, their GDP purchasing power parity has surpassed the $2 trillion mark.

Basically, the Philippines is definitely becoming a key power player in the world stage.

It's like someday for what it's worth, though mining, fishing and agriculture are strong industries as well.

They are currently the world's largest nickel and avocado or Manila ham producers and the second largest coconut producer after Indonesia.

Tourism, though, is another important destry, taking up about 8% of their GDP, employing over three million people and now food now in the Philippines.

Every region has their own specialty and culinary strange.

Every dish looks like a fairy exploded, lots of dishes you could equal Mukai Income I or with their hands.

Yeah, pretty much everything has rise.

And then you're gonna get a lot of grease and salt and vinegar and a lot of like I don't care if that looks like it goes there or not.

I'm still gonna eat it anyway, right?

Can?

Yeah, that's Filipino food.

There's really no official national dish, but three meals that are well known for our adobo, Lupita and synagogue and in the non Muslim parts electron is a huge deal.

There are also dishes like Tagalog steak, dinner, Ola Fancy, Luke, Luke, Gary Gary, 60 capsule Oh, balut and my favorite Filipino dish pas la book.

Just put some nice little lemon juice on it.

Actually got this at Jolly be If you don't know what Jollibee is, it's like the most popular fast food chain in the Philippines.

It's like if McDonald's and KFC adopted a Filipino baby, and they even added spaghetti to their menu for some reason.

Otherwise, Filipinos are desert experts.

They love their obey, obey.

Everything will be ice cream.

We bred booby pie bake cakes.

They also have, like something's up in and cassava cakes.

Those were the best desserts, in my opinion.

They also have hollow, hollow.

Let your flat thrown Boco abandon and Bhutto what you call me.

If you're either lad in American or Spanish, you may notice some of those foods are also found in Latin cuisine, and there's a reason for that works.

In that end, not only in the Philippines can you find people that have Spanish names speak English, celebrating Austronesian culture and cook Chinese General MacArthur once said, Give me 1000 Filipino shoulders and I will conquer the world.

Yeah, For some reason, Filipinos are like the best friends of Asia.

Filipinos still have the best attitudes, and smiles even give time off felony sentences if the prisoners volunteered to take part in a Michael Jackson dance performance to the public.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves first.

The graph.

The country is about 110 million people and is the eighth most populated country in Asia in the 12 most populated country in the world.

There are about 175 known linguistic people groups in the Philippines, the majority of whose language is our Austronesian.

Of these groups, the largest ones are the Tagalog, at about 28% 13% or C guano, 9% are Lugano and 8% of Messiah.

The rest are made up of other groups, plus a small minority of non native citizens, mostly Asians and Americans.

It's important to note, though, that the Philippines has about 10.2 million people overseas.

Worldwide.

It is one of the largest diaspora populations spanning over 100 countries.

The U.

S alone has about four million.

I mean, they were at one point colonized by the U.

S.

So go figure.

They use the Filipino pesos, the currency, these types A, B and C plug outlets, and they drive on the right side of the room.

Oh, and keep in mind the word pin.

Oi is synonymous with something that is Filipino.

You might see that use a lot now back to the ethnic groups thing.

Since there are over 100 75 of them, you would think How do they all come, You know?

Okay, Well, the Philippines has to official languages English, which makes in the fifth most English speaking nation on Earth, and Filipino, which is the standardized version of the Gallo.

The Philippine Tagalog language spoken today is a very different from pure to Gollum.

It actually has about 14% Spanish, 10% July and 7% English mixed into it with a slew of other borrowed loan words, You could see the influence in words like mental adore Guapo potatoes and Amelia.

Often Filipinos was substitute and f with the Pee wee review with a B or a view with be with Koreans actually high five with minimal continents A oh, and fun fact can talk me this in Tikal A.

You can actually say an entire conversation just using the syllable Bob, for example by Bubba Bubba Baba.

But Baba Baba Baba Baba Baba Well, that was fun.

Otherwise, in the messiahs and means in our area, said guano is a common language as well as the other regional tongues.

like what?

I and Dabo Anil They even have the on Lee, Spanish based Creole in Asia.

Jack McConnell, located in Zamboanga City.

Now the Philippines is unique in that over a past few centuries they've gone through three periods that shape their identity before European intervention.

The Philippines has had a multitude of early civilizations that build kingdoms and dynasties like the John Doe Nam Ion, the panacea non and the screw loose on Today, many of these kingdoms had their own condition ist writing system such as a Byeon who he s Kaya and Kalitta.

Genetically Filipinos are classified as belonging to the broader Austronesian People Group with their closest cousins being the Micronesians like the Mariana Islanders, Guam and Pulau.

Although over the years many people have mixed and today it is speculated that somewhere around 1/5 form or the population may have some kind of Chinese ancestry.

After the Spanish came in, they adopted many of the customs traditions and cultural traits which have Spanish roots, their own countries named after Spanish King Philip.

The biggest trade, though, would be the fact that they're predominantly Catholic at about 81% of the PA population adhering to the fate.

The rest are mostly Protestant, with a small Muslim minority in the South Mindanao area, The Philippines is the largest Christian nation in Asia, fifth largest Christian nation on earth and third largest Catholic nation after Brazil.